Identifier: meccasofworldpla01cran (find matches)
Title: The meccas of the world; the play of modern life in New York, Paris, Vienna, Madrid and London
Year: 1913 (1910s)
Authors: Cranston, Ruth
Subjects:
Publisher: New York, John Lane company
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: Sloan Foundation

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oral; mermaids and men alike en-meshed within the shining seaweed and pale, rosyshells—compassed, held about by the blue-green wallsof their translucent prison. The pearly lights gleamedsofter, the music of the sirens floated sweeter andmore seductive on each wave, the water sprites andcloudy gulls circled and swam in wilder, lovelier haze. And then—the wand of realism swept over them.They were a laughing, twirling crowd of Viennese,abandoned to the intoxication of their deity: thedance. Reckless, pleasure-mad, never flagging inpursuit of the evanescent joie de vivre, they becameall at once a band of extravagant, lovable childrenwho had stayed up too late and ought to have beenput to bed. 170 THE MECCAS OF THE WORLD But I was always a doting uncle. I left them totheir revel, and departed. I shall go back some day,for I have now in Vienna the gay, the gemiitUch, aniece named Patsy—and it all came from choosing atrain that arrived before breakfast! IVTHE BROKEN-DOWN ACTOR (Madrid)
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THE SOTTL OF OLD SPAIN I HIS CORNER APART In spirit, as in distance, it is a far cry from thechildlike gaiety and extravagance of Vienna to thegloom and haughty poverty of Madrid. Gloomy inits psychic rather than its physical aspects is this cityof the plain, for while the sun scorches in summerand the wind chills in winter, thanks to the quite mod-ern architecture of New Madrid, there is ample lightand space all the year round. Any Spanish history will tell you that Charles Vchose this place for his capital because the climatewas good for his gout. One author maintains thatit was for the far subtler reason that Madrid wasneutral ground between the jealous cities of Toledo,Valladolid and Seville. But everyone, past and pres-ent, agrees that the Spanish capital is the least Span-ish of any town in the kingdom. It shares but onedistinctive trait with the rest of Spain—and that thedominant trait of the nation: pride, illimitable andunconditioned, in the glory of the past; oblivion toth

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